The reassessment gambit

Monday

Jul 29, 2013 at 12:01 AMJul 29, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Your story touting the wonders of real estate tax reassessment missed the mark. Using terms like "equally pernicious problem: cancer" and "an unfair situation" to describe the county's refusal to waste millions of taxpayer dollars to clobber the owners of older homes is absurd.

And where is this debate over "tax equity" raging, except within your own four walls? How, in the mindless pursuit of “fairness,” would it be fair for the County of Bucks to yield to special-interest groups like CERBC and spend $8 million to $10 million taxpayer dollars to achieve a one-year goal of imaginary and elusive "fairness" on the backs of those already struggling to eke out a living?

Indeed, people who buy McMansions are already getting a huge tax break at the expense of people owning older and less grand homes, as tax revenues from new houses generate only about one-third what it costs the government of everyone to service them.

And since tax assessments are fully disclosed before the new owners agree to sign on the dotted line, how unfair is it to expect them to live up to their own contractual responsibility?

Bob Maxwell

Plumstead Township

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